Dick Zoutman

The Canadian COVID Society is hosting special events across Canada for Long COVID Awareness month!

Please participate on March 15th, International Long COVID Awareness Day!

Very nice study linking common household exposures to asthma symptoms. Many risk factors are things we can do something about.
Clean air is a good thing!

“Disparities were also evident, with older adults, women, and non-Hispanic Black respondents reporting greater morbidity.”

“Current smoking, lack of bathroom or kitchen ventilation, and absence of air purifier use were consistently associated with higher odds of morbidity. Protective associations were observed for homes without mold, rodents, or furry pets.

“Multivariable logistic regression models, adjusted for survey design and demographic covariates, were used to examine associations between household and environmental determinants and four morbidity outcomes: asthma attacks, recent symptoms, sleep difficulty, and limited activity due to asthma.

“We analyzed pooled data from 1596 Texas adults with asthma who completed the Asthma Call-Back Survey between 2019 and 2022.

www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/17...

Way to go Professor Vipond!!

A highly distressing report of increasing violence over water access. Water is a basic human right. NO ONE can survive without it. WE cannot survive without it. The factors contributing to this violence such as climate change, corruption & incompetent governments are leading us down a deadly path.

Dramatic rise in water-related violence recorded since 2022 Experts say climate crisis, corruption and lack or misuse of infrastructure among factors driving water conflicts

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

List compiled by COVID Safer San Francisco Bay Area (CSSFBA). Thank you!
Will be amazing and inspirational to see!
Over 100 locations in Canada will be lit up!!🇨🇦

Lit For Long Covid 2026 (#LitForLongCovid)

March 15, 2026 is International Long COVID Awareness Day!
One of many many events includes lighting up buildings, monuments and other landmarks around the world with teal and grey lights!
Here is a list of known locations around the world:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Video compiled by Maarten de Cock.
Provides such clarity on the critical issue of airborne transmission of COVID-19:

youtu.be/H3Pf-l2unKk?...

(...) making it harder for people to work, study, care for families, and participate fully in daily life.

This Long COVID Awareness Month, we must bring visibility to the millions of people affected and accelerate research, prevention, and support.

The COVID vaccine for 2024-2025 year was 40% effective in preventing you needing to be admitted to hospital and 79% effective in preventing you from needing to be put on a ventilator or dying of severe acute COVID.
I am happy to sign up for those improvements in the odds of bad things happening!

Estimated 2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Severe COVID-19 This case-control study estimates vaccine effectiveness of the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines against severe COVID-19 and investigates whether it varied by SARS-CoV-2 lineage or spike protein mutations.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

COVID infection in babies is associated with worse illness and a 7 fold higher death rate than RSV infection.
COVID vaccine is recommended for babies 6 months of age and older.
COVID is very bad for small children and babies.
Get them vaccinated.
Clean the air we all breathe.

“Proportionally, severe outcomes, including
invasive mechanical ventilation, receipt of vasopressors, and death occurred more frequently in
children who were older and hospitalized for COVID-19 vs. RSV. Preventive measures against
RSV and COVID-19 are critical among very young children.

“In this study among children <2 years of age hospitalized in the ICU with acute respiratory failure, children with RSV+SARS-CoV-2
codetection had an age distribution, illness presentation, and clinical severity more similar to
children with RSV than those with COVID-19.

“RSV and COVID-19 can both result in severe illness in infants and young children, but symptoms and clinical outcomes may differ.

Characteristics of young children hospitalized with acute respiratory failure from infection with RSV, SARS-CoV-2, or both, November 2023–March 2024 Children <2 years of age hospitalized for respiratory failure with COVID-19 infection were older and more likely to require intubation than those with r

academic.oup.com/ofid/advance...

If you have asthma, chronic bronchitis, COPD or other chronic lung issues you are at greater risk of suffering long covid after even a mild initial covid infection.
Best to avoid getting covid.
Get vaccinated.
Wear an N95 respirator in indoor public spaces.
Clean the air we all breathe.

“Understanding the link between common respiratory conditions managed in primary care, including asthma and bronchitis, and long COVID is vital for refining clinical strategies and improving
outcomes in post-viral conditions.”

“Patients with Long COVID with a mild-to-moderate primary SARS-CoV-2
infection had higher prevalence of pre-existing respiratory conditions
than controls, suggesting that respiratory diseases including asthma
were a significant risk factor for long COVID also in the non-hospitalized
population.

Association of pre-pandemic respiratory system diseases with long COVID: a population-based case-control study - BMC Infectious Diseases BMC Infectious Diseases - Long COVID, defined as diverse symptoms persisting &gt; 3 months post-infection, remains a major post-pandemic healthcare burden. Here we investigate risk...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We can now add acute and chronic kidney damage and failure to the long and growing list of body organs and systems damaged by COVID infection.
Don’t get COVID.
Wear an N95 in public indoor spaces.
Get vaccinated.
Clean the air we all breathe.

“These findings suggest that COVID-19 may have a stronger impact on kidney diseases than influenza, highlighting the need for greater attention and monitoring of kidney function after COVID-19 infection.”

“We found that individuals who had COVID-19 were more likely to develop kidney problems, including short-term injury and long-term chronic disease.